Seer of ghosts & weaver of stories

(You are very much not forgotten)

SpeechMotion attendance on Tuesday evening was primarily restricted to a small handful of locals, lifegivingsword, snowballjane, and my Flipped Eye colleague Camilla Reeve. Add an over-boisterous, constantly scampering-about dog to the event starting late and...yes. I think everybody does that gig once in their life. Also, we had a devil of a time finding the Horse & Groom; in the process, we ended up walking from Whitechapel to Shoreditch via Brick Lane in the rain.

Yesterday: the Tate Modern. James and I had never gone before, so we decided to give it a try. About the only wing I really enjoyed was the one thematically titled Poetry & Dream. Otherwise, I came away somewhat unimpressed. Dammit, where are they hiding the Chagall paintings that their website claims they have?

MESSAGE TO THOSE WHO REQUESTED HOLIDAY CARDS: I picked up a bunch of blank sketchbook postcards at the Tate gift shop and decided I'm going to draw or stamp designs onto them myself. I beg pardon for any artistic lameness that may result!

Do you still have my old one? Send it here :) We will, in fact, get all post up through the end of December/start of January, and even beyond, because our flatmate is staying on here and will take good care of any straggling post!

I don't remember any paintings whatsoever, but it HAS been five years since I was there last. But most of it seemed to be more ... sculpture. The only thing that I liked was a full-room installation of a bunch of stuff from a shed that the British army had blown up, and it had been suspended like a mobile. Not that I would have wanted it in my house, but the effort of it, and the fact that no part of it touched was cool.

But yeah, modern art usually makes my hair fall out of my head in dismay.

I'm sorry I didn't get to see you! I had your visit dates in my calendar (although not what for) for months in advance after all. I meant to tell/remind you of the BSFA meeting, but clearly didn't do that either. One of these times!

* For a full list of publication credits in poetry and fiction, see my profile.

ABOUT

A.J. Odasso's poetry has appeared in an eclectic variety of publications, including Sybil's Garage, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, Cabinet des Fées, Midnight Echo, Not One of Us, Dreams & Nightmares, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Farrago's Wainscot, Through the Gate, Liminality, inkscrawl, Battersea Review, Barking Sycamores, and New England Review of Books. Her début collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing), was nominated for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and for the 2011 Forward Prize, and was also a finalist for the 2011 People's Book Prize. Her second collection with Flipped Eye, The Dishonesty of Dreams, was released in 2014. She holds degrees from Wellesley College (B.A. in English), University of York (M.A. in Medieval Studies), and Boston University (M.F.A. in Creative Writing). She has served in the Poetry Department at Strange Horizons since 2012.